Orven Blackshale on the Underdark
The Sunless Roads of the Hidden Host, A briefing from Orven “Last-Lamp” Blackshale
Lady Agnes has engaged Orven to advise the expedition before its departure from Astonwick. An elderly human with a pale, lined face and watery eyes, he moves with a wooden crutch and keeps the weight off a weakened leg. His travelling days are over. His memory remains sharp. He spent much of his working life accompanying prospectors, merchants and salvage parties beneath the earth. His nickname comes from an expedition whose surviving members returned by the light of his spare lamp. He does not enjoy discussing how many people began that journey. Orven settles into a chair, rests his crutch within reach and looks over the company.
“Before you go, I want to know what you’re carrying. Weapons, yes. I assumed those. I mean what keeps you alive between the fights.”
Darkness and light
“Once you leave the daylight behind, expect blackness. Proper blackness. Your eyes won’t get used to it. There’s nothing to get used to. Some of you can see in the dark. Tell your companions how far. If it’s sixty feet, you know nothing about what’s sixty-five feet away. Those with eyes that work better in dim light still need some light. Bring a lamp, fuel and another means of lighting your way. If you depend on a spell, know how long it lasts and what happens when you cannot cast it. Keep the people who need light within its reach. You may find glowing growths. Pleasant enough to look at. Don’t plan your journey around them. And remember: your lantern tells anyone ahead that you’re coming.”
Food and drinking water
“Take your meals with you. Most passages grow stone, and I’ve yet to find a satisfactory way of cooking it. People below grow fungi, keep beetles and trade for food. They know which growths are edible and which need preparing. You don’t. A mushroom looking familiar is no recommendation. Carry water and something sound to carry it in. Clear water can still be foul. Find out what’s upstream before you fill your skins. If someone can purify it, make sure they actually have the spell available. Count your provisions in days for the whole company. Include guides and anyone you bring back. Then allow something for a blocked road or a mistake.”
Roads ropes and burdens
“There are proper roads below. Steps, wagon slopes, passing places. You’ll wonder who built them. So do I. Then you’ll reach a broken stretch and wish its builders were still about to repair it. Expect loose rubble, slippery steps, low arches and passages where a broad pack becomes a nuisance. Horses may reach places they cannot leave. Have somewhere to keep them if they cannot continue. Show me your rope before departure. Take pitons, a hammer and whatever you need to secure one another. A rope in somebody else’s bag is no use when that somebody is on the wrong side of a gap. Know who carries the food, spare lamps and climbing gear. Know what it all weighs. If you have to abandon a pack, you should know what you’re losing.”
Air cold and water
“The old through roads usually have decent air. A draught means passages connect somewhere. It doesn’t tell you whether that somewhere is safe. Dead ends, pits and abandoned workings deserve more care. If the air seems wrong, stop and investigate. Don’t send the next person down merely because the first one has gone quiet. You’ll sweat on a climb, then sit in damp clothes and get cold. Keep something dry for resting in. Wrap what matters against drips. A dry bedroll is worth the trouble. Water can make a stair treacherous. It can also drown out an approaching creature. Listen before you commit yourselves to a passage.”
Finding your way home
“Choose someone to draw the route and someone else to check it. Record junctions, changes of level and landmarks you can recognise coming back. Mark the turning where you can see it from the other direction. You’d be surprised how often clever people forget that. And don’t put your only mark on something that can be moved. There’s no sunset to tell you when to stop. Keep account of the hours. Eat, rest and set watches deliberately. Walking until everyone drops is a poor arrangement.”
Choosing a resting place
“Empty isn’t the same as unused. Look for tracks, droppings, bedding, bones and signs of recent traffic. Something may be out hunting. Find dry ground, look above you and consider how you’ll leave if the entrance becomes dangerous. Arrange watches. Keep your equipment together and your boots where you can find them.”
The changed passages
“The Galsitanic Intrusion reached underground too. Six months, eight months, whatever the scholars settle upon: we’re still learning what it did. Roads end in solid rock. Streams run elsewhere. New caverns have opened into places that used to be closed. Neighbours have lost one another, and people are trying to find passages through. I knew those roads. Past tense. I can tell you how to travel below, what to carry and what to watch for. Anyone promising you an accurate map of the whole place is selling something.”
People who live below
“There are homes down there. Gardens, workshops, toll gates, markets. People who need supper and want their children to come home. There are also slavers, thieves and things that will eat you. Pay attention to which you’re dealing with. A goblin selling you supper may be the most useful person you meet that week. Pay fairly. Learn the local terms before you cross the gate, and don’t mistake somebody’s courtesy for weakness. Nor should you mistake it for agreement. They may honour their word to you and tolerate things you find hateful. A promise of safe trading tells you how you’ll be treated while you behave yourself. Ask what else it means. Take stock of your languages. Common won’t settle every conversation. Guides, porters and traders may know more about the next road than any fine old map.”
Before departure
Orven asks the company to check the following together. Each shared item should have a named carrier.
- Light sources, spare fuel and an independent backup.
- Each character’s vision type and range.
- Food for the whole company, including a reserve.
- Drinking water, containers and a means of obtaining more safely.
- Rope, pitons, hammer and suitable climbing arrangements.
- Dry clothing or bedding protected from water.
- Accurate equipment lists and carrying loads.
- Mapping materials and a method of marking junctions.
- Available languages and any arrangements for a guide.
- Plans for watches, rest, mounts and the return journey.
- The actual spells available for light, food, water and other necessities.
“Ask now. Anything you think you ought to know. I would much rather answer a foolish question here than hear afterwards that nobody thought to ask it.”
Appendix Useful Underground Growths
“Learn a few things you can recognise,” Orven advises. “Then get someone who knows the local beds to check your judgement. You cannot eat a name out of a book.”
Food crops and edible growths
Breadcap
A broad, buff-coloured mushroom grown in tended beds. Firm inner flesh is sliced and thoroughly cooked, or dried and ground into meal. A staple food in some settlements. Cultivated beds are somebody’s property; wild lookalikes require knowledgeable identification.
Stonebean
A low creeping plant with waxy leaves and pale pods, grown in caverns with suitable magical or natural illumination. Its beans are boiled into thick stews or dried for travelling. It does not grow in ordinary lightless passages.
Coilroot
A pale edible root cultivated in damp soil near inhabited caverns with suitable light. Cooked roots are filling, while sliced roots can be dried. Harvesting uproots the plant, so growers protect their beds carefully.
Pepper frill
A small rust-red fungus with thin, frilled edges. Dried cultivated frills are used sparingly to flavour otherwise bland meals. It is a seasoning rather than a meal; other red growths are not interchangeable.
Drip lettuce
A local name for tender, leaflike fungal growths raised on clean, damp growing racks. Eaten cooked in broth. Wild growth beside drains or polluted streams is unsuitable for gathering, however healthy it looks.
Finding food responsibly
A productive cavern may feed a community because its inhabitants tend beds, bring in growing material and manage water. Edible growths are not an unlimited supply. Seek local advice, establish ownership and carry provisions between settlements. This appendix does not automatically identify an unfamiliar specimen as safe.
Timber and practical materials
Pillarcap
A tree-sized fungus with a thick fibrous stalk and a broad grey cap. Mature stalks can be cut, split and seasoned into a timber substitute for posts, furniture, tool handles and walkways. Fresh stalks are heavy and wet. Structural use requires sound, properly dried material; old hollow stalks may conceal rot or animals. Not a food crop.
Shelfwood
Heavy overlapping fungal shelves grow from cavern walls. Harvested plates are dried and trimmed for screens, roof coverings, boxes and light partitions. They are useful panels, not dependable substitutes for load-bearing beams. Not edible.
Cordvine
A tough climbing plant cultivated beside illuminated growing caverns. Its long fibres can be retted, dried and twisted into cord, basketry and coarse cloth. Fresh strands are not ready-made climbing rope; finished rope must be prepared and checked.
Wick fuzz
A soft, woolly fungus harvested for tinder and lamp wicks after careful drying. Keep it in a sealed dry container. Living wet growth is poor tinder, and unfamiliar spore growth should not be disturbed casually.
Ghostcap
A pale mushroom with translucent caps and faintly luminous gills. Colonies mark damp patches with a weak glow, useful as local landmarks or tended path markers. They do not reliably illuminate a cavern or replace a travelling lamp. Not considered food; harvested caps soon lose their glow.
What travellers should remember
The Galsitanic Intrusion exposed unfamiliar caverns and growths. Recognition learned elsewhere may be incomplete here. Smell, colour and the sight of an animal eating something are not sufficient proof that it is safe for a character to consume.
“Buy your boards from someone who dries them,” says Orven. “Buy your supper from someone who eats it. And keep a few meals in your pack for the road between them.”